


A League of Their Own

by orange_panic_archive



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: 2021 Avatar Pro-Shipping Rare Pair Challenge, F/M, Gen, Heavy Drinking, Loss of Bending Ability (Avatar), Mecha, Pro-Bending (Avatar), Tahsami, Team as Family, This is such crack but also fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 10:21:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30104466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_panic_archive/pseuds/orange_panic_archive
Summary: When Korra refuses to restore Tahno's waterbending ability, he's left with nothing. That is, until Asami approaches him with an intriguing proposition.
Relationships: Asami Sato/Tahno
Comments: 7
Kudos: 10
Collections: 2021 Avatar Pro-Shipping Rare Pair Challenge





	A League of Their Own

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2021 Avatar Pro-Shipping Rare Pair Challenge Week 5 prompt: "Sir, this is my emotional support (mecha)."
> 
> Takes place following season one. I do not own LOK or any of these characters.
> 
> I'm not an engineer and wrote this in three hours. Just... suspend your disbelief, ok?
> 
> G but with swearing. Comments and feedback always appreciated.

Tahno kicked out at the pigeon rat again. It fluttered and squeaked as it skittered away, then fixed a baleful eye on the brown paper bag in his hand. Stupid fucking thing probably thought it was food. Tahno took another swig of gin, more out of spite than anything else. His eyes watered. _Take that, you goddamned vulture._

He was seated on a bench outside Republic City Central Station again, for no other reason than it was somewhere to be. Tahno knew Kenny would take him in in a heartbeat, and he still slept on his couch most nights when he was sober enough to find the flat, but there was only so much he wanted to impose. His little brother had a life, if you could call slinging cocktails for rich assholes in the bar of Spirits nightclub a life. What’s more, Kenny had always had it harder, and despite how he’d often treated him Tahno actually knew that. It wasn’t fair to weigh him down.

So, Tahno spent his days at the train station, or places enough like it that it hardly mattered. He drank the cheapest gin he could find with the few yuans he got doing odd jobs here and there, mostly from former fans and folks at the pro-bending arena who took pity on him. He ate very little—why eat when you could drink?—and he sat. Sat, and thought about water. 

_“No,” Korra had said, her blue eyes narrowed in dislike. “I don’t give criminals their bending back, Tahno.”_

_“What? But… but… I’m not a criminal, I’m a pro-bender.”_

_“How many times did the Wolfbats cheat their way to winning the championship, huh? And how much money did you and your teammates make because of it?”_

_“No! That’s not… I was put up to it, I swear!” This had been at least partly true. Rigging the matches hadn’t been Tahno’s idea._

_Korra put both hands on her hips. “A racket is a racket, asshole. You benefited from illegal activity. That makes you no better than the bending triads in my book.”_

_“That’s crazy. You’re crazy! You’re just doing this because you’re pissed we beat you in the tournament.”_

_“Maybe I am!” she shot back. “But you know what?” She dramatically sniffed the air. “Yeah, that’s right. That’s definitely the scent of losers. Get out, Tahno.”_

So Tahno had left. He’d come back the next day, and the next, offering the Avatar everything he could think of: money, to throw the next match any time the Wolfbats faced the Fire Ferrets, to show _her_ how to convincingly throw a match, private lessons, even sex. She’d turned him down flat each time, finally instructing the guards to stop letting him in the building.

Now, Tahno drank. Gin wasn’t water, but he liked the way it sounded sloshing in the bottle. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend. Splish, splash. A comforting sound, even now. 

He was startled by the rev of an engine. Tahno looked up, bleary-eyed, to see a woman parking her motorbike. After a moment he recognized her. Sato, Mako’s girlfriend. He grimaced. Just what he needed, another Fire Ferret fan girl to kick him while he’s down. He shook his head a little, letting his unkempt hair fall forward in an attempt to hide his face. Sato was probably just going to the train.

Instead, she marched straight toward him. In spite of himself, Tahno had to admit that Mako had good taste. Tall and lithe, with bright green eyes and pitch-black hair nearly to her waist, Asami Sato looked like a pinup girl in biking leathers. She didn’t have the kind of curves that Korra did, but somehow Tahno got the impression it wouldn’t matter much once you got under the hood, so to speak. Asami looked like she knew how to drive.

“Tahno, right?” she asked. Her pretty face had a look of mild disgust that Tahno imagined reflected his appearance. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d showered. Had it been two days ago, or three?

“What’s it worth to you if I am?” 

“I hear you do jobs. I have one. Are you in or not?” 

Tahno thought about asking what the job was, then decided it didn’t matter. “Sure.”

Asami handed him a card with a time and address. Then she fished in her purse and pulled out a couple of yuans. She tossed them in his lap. “And go take a shower. The train station has coin op stalls. I can’t work like this.” 

And with that, she was gone.

***

Tahno took a shower at Kenny’s and used the money to buy more gin. Then he made his way to the address on the card. It turned out to be a warehouse in the Industrial District just south of downtown. Someone had taped a little sign to the front door that read simply, “Come in.”

The warehouse itself was about as long as the train station itself, and filled with all kinds of crazy crap. Tahno didn’t know the first thing about machinery, but there was a lot of it. Long belts connected huge boxes and funnels, interspersed with long jointed arms and big metal hooks. Crates and crates of labeled parts were stacked high along the walls. It looked like some kind of old factory, or possibly a torture chamber. 

“Over here,” Asami’s voice called. She popped out from behind a large cabinet, a pair of green goggles balanced on her forehead. “Tahno?”

“What’s left of him.” Tahno sauntered over, trying to look more confident than he felt. The warehouse was starting to creep him out a little. Asami Sato hadn’t been an Equalist as far as he knew, and the fact that she wasn’t in jail with her father supported that, but still. There were a few too many long shadows in here.

“So what’s this job, Sato?” he drawled. “I haven’t got all day.”

She flashed him a glare. “And I haven’t got time for your attitude. I need a non-bender waterbender to test some new mecha, and I pay well. My choices were you and Shady Shin. Don’t make me regret it.”

 _A non-bending waterbender?_ He’d never thought of himself like that, but he supposed it was true. Somehow that made it hurt all over again. 

“Shady Shin is a two-bit amateur. You came to the right place.”

Asami ignored him. Instead, she reached behind her and pulled down what looked like a big metal glove. “Here,” she said. “Put this on.” 

Tahno shrugged, took the glove, and slipped it over his right hand. “Now what?”

Asami nudged one black boot against a bucket of water he hadn’t noticed. “Try to waterbend.”

Tahno felt his shoulders slump, any false confidence bleeding away. “I never got my bending back,” he said. “Korra wouldn’t do it. Called us cheaters, criminals. She put me in the same camp as the triads, can you believe it?”

Asami pressed her lips together. “Yeah that was bullshit. The Wolfbats _are_ dirty rotten cheaters, and you should probably have been kicked out of the league, but to not give you your bending back because of some stupid game? That’s awful.” She gestured to the glove. “Which brings me to this. Try to bend, Tahno.” 

_What the hell._ Tahno took a deep breath, then moved his arms in a fluid motion that normally gathered water into a ball. It was pretty basic. And for the first time since the tournament, he almost… felt something. A twitch in his arm. The water shuddered, but didn’t rise. 

“Did I do that?” he asked, shocked. But Asami only frowned.

“Hmm. Maybe you need two for water. Hang on.” She rummaged again in the cabinet behind her, then brought out a second glove. “Put this on your other hand and try again.” 

Tahno practically snatched it out of her hand. He shoved it onto his left hand and repeated the movement. This time, a ball of water about the size of a tomato rose slowly out of the bucket. It wasn’t fast, but holy shit, it was _there._ Tahno gasped and dropped the ball, which hit the bucket with a splash. When he looked up, Asami Sato was beaming.

“How… how are you doing this?”

“Electromagnetic currents,” she said proudly. “My father developed these kinds of gloves for the Equalists, but they only shot electricity. I’ve been working on them over the last few months to see if I could make them mimic the effects of bending. The fire ones are the best, as that wasn’t that big a leap, and the earthbending ones are coming along nicely with the addition of some different magnet materials, but I’ve only recently cracked the waterbending ones. There’s a long way to go before we can use them in the arena, but I think we’ll get there.”

Tahno blinked. “Use them in the arena?”

Asami cocked her head. “Of course. What did you think I was doing? I’m no Equalist despite what some people think, but they had a few good points. With mecha like this, there’s no reason people like you and I can’t play at pro-bending. In fact, I’m thinking of putting together a team.” She gave him an appraising look. “If you can pull your head out of that bottle long enough to get back in shape, I’ll need a waterbender. You know all the moves.”

“What about the Fire Ferrets? I thought Future Industries sponsored them?”

“Fuck those guys,” Asami said blithely. She started putting away the gloves, their test apparently over. “I run Future Industries now, and we have new priorities. I’ve been practicing with the firebending gloves, too. I can’t wait for a chance to knock Mako’s cheating ass into the tank.”

“Wait, _you’re_ going to be on the team? As a firebender?”

Asami shrugged. “Firebending is hot.” Then she broke into a smile. “Pun not intended.” 

***

In the end they settled on a name designed to get some attention: The Republic City Equalists. Tahno had expressed some serious reservations about that, but Asami said it was important to make a statement, and anyone who looked at the stock market could tell she knew how to run a business. So, the Equalists they became. 

Eventually Tahno succeeded in recruiting Kenny to be their earthbender. The kid had always been stubborn as hell, not to mention blatantly jealous of Tahno’s pro-bending career. After the kindness his brother had shown him in the months after he’d lost everything, it was the least he could do to put him on the team. Besides, Tahno kind of liked the idea of playing with two people who had never been benders before. Though Asami was captain, he’d quickly fallen into the role of mentor and coach, and was surprised to find it suited him. 

Asami herself took to firebending like a turtleduck to water. It was actually kind of scary. With mecha gloves on both hands and special boots as well, before long it was hard to tell that she hadn’t been born with it. Kenny took a bit longer, but he had Tahno’s natural athleticism and picked up most of the basics fairly quickly. He supposed getting the chance to hurl rocks at his brother was a strong motivator.

The hardest part, oddly enough, turned out to be registering the team. 

“What do you mean, no?” Asami spat. “It’s pro-bending. We’re a pro-bending team. We play by the same rules, and I’ve filed all the paperwork.”

Shiro Shinobi raised both hands in apology. “I’m sorry, Miss Sato. We’ve never had a mecha-based bending team. It just isn’t done.”

Asami narrowed her eyes. “It isn’t done because I just invented it, asshole. I’ve read your entire book of regulations. Please point to the one that prohibits mecha-based bending.” Tahno bit back a smile. Asami on fire was pretty fun to watch.

“I… um…” Shiro stuttered. “You don’t understand! The fans won’t have it. Pro-bending is for benders!”

“That sounds a lot like discrimination to me,” Asami said. She put one hand on her hip, then cocked an eyebrow. “Do you really want an editorial in the _Republic City Press_ less than a year after Amon talking about how pro-bending is turning away qualified non-benders?” Then she put a finger to her chin, looking thoughtful. “Or should I simply start my own league? Call it corporate social responsibility. We might not take all your fans, but there are a lot more non-benders in Republic City. I’m sure they’d love to see more teams like ours compete in our brand new state-of-the-art arena. Hell, we could set up franchises all over the city, get the kiddos involved. Build a whole pipeline…”

Shiro started to sweat. “Please don’t do that.”

Asami leveled her gaze at him. “So are you going to let us play, or aren’t you?”

As soon as they left the office, Tahno started to laugh.

***

“All right, team huddle!” Asami called. 

Kenny trotted over from the corner, already fully dressed in his black and yellow outfit. He beamed at Tahno from underneath his helmet. “Do you really think we have a chance guys?”

Asami looked them each in the eye. “Whatever happens, I want to say how proud I am of you. Of us. We’re changing history tonight, win or lose.”

“Oh please.” Tahno rolled his eyes. “It’s the Fire Ferrets, pro-bending’s saddest excuse for a team. A couple of amateurs and the Uh-vatar.” He twirled his hand a little. “Come on, we’ve got these losers whipped already.”

Asami grinned. “Totally.”

“All right!” Kenny was practically bouncing out of his mecha boots. Tahno couldn’t remember ever having seen the kid so excited about anything. 

Asami handed him the roster. “Kenobi, can you run this up to Shiro?”

Kenny gave her a sloppy salute. “Aye aye, captain!” Then he hurried out the door. Asami watched him go with a soft smile.

“Good pick there,” she said. “I think he’s got a lot of potential.”

Tahno returned her smile. He found he smiled a lot these days, and a lot less sarcastically, too. “He always did.”

Asami turned to face him, her green eyes shining. “Thank you, Tahno. I admit I had my doubts at the beginning, but I couldn’t have done this without you.”

Tahno flicked his hair. He’d started dyeing it again, the deep midnight purple he liked so much better than his natural dirty blonde. “I know.”

Asami gave his chest a shove. “Jerk. You’d just better deliver out there.”

He gasped in mock surprise. “Deliver? Oh dear, was I not supposed to bribe the ref?” Asami made to shove him again, but he caught her hand in mid-air. Something seemed to pass between them. He dropped his teasing tone. “It’s all you, Asami. You know that, right? You’re the heart of this team. You’re the only reason any of us are here. And you’re the reason more kids like Kenny will get a chance.”

Asami dropped her eyes. “Thanks. It… it means a lot to me to hear that.”

Tahno reached out and tipped her chin up to his. “Ready to go hand Mako his ass on a platter?”

Asami grinned. “And how.” Then she furrowed her brows. “Tahno, I have a proposition for you.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, more like a trade. Knock Korra in the water before the first half and I’ll take you to dinner.” 

His heartbeat quickened. “That’s hardly a challenge. The _Uh-vatar_ is no match for yours truly. What do I get if I slap her in the drink in the first five minutes?”

Asami batted her long lashes. “Private lessons?”

Tahno laughed. Clearly Korra had told her about their first meeting. He punched her in the shoulder as Kenny burst through the door.

“Guys, we’re up!” 

Asami grabbed his hand through her bending glove, then took his brother’s as well. “All right. You know the drill.” Kenny locked hands on his other side. “One, two, three…”

Tahno shouted just as loudly as the rest. “Go Equalists!”


End file.
